AFAIK, the Gintama manga series is been done for 15 years, when there is only 4 years of anime (though many of those manga volumes were made after the anime series, so it's impossible the anime is based on them). Which years/chapters of the manga is based the Gintama anime series?

2 Answers
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My apologies, after being sought out I believe I didn't answer or read your question to the fullest.

You asked if any of the managa for Gintama was based on the anime. As I had to re-read your question, the answer to your question is none of it as far as I have read. You said the anime has been done for 15 years is false, the anime(assume your taking about the first to third season of said anime) started in 2006 then ended in 2009.

The manga that show is based on only came out about two years prior in it's initial Japanese release. The manga to anime followed this trend for awhile, with some arcs being dropped or switched out.

More episodes of the anime have came out in recent years with Gintama. Shirogane no Tamashii-hen having aired in January.

So re-state what i am trying to say in less words.
1. the anime has not been done for 15 years, it has continued with the latest airing of a new anime being in January.
2. the anime and manga have taken a break or two over the years due to various factors (artist health being one of them.)
3. None of the manga has been based on the anime, considering the manga chapter the anime is based on dropped two years prior to the anime episode being released.

I don't beleive Yorozuyasoul has been updated in years. If it's just a list of what manga chapters correspond to which anime episodes, the Gintama Wikia is more up to date.
– GorpMay 21 '18 at 12:45

@kuwaly you are correct, I should have answered the question more fully.
– Dominique FrancisMay 22 '18 at 16:44

@Gorp, you are also correct, the wikia is more up to date but I rushed to see this question answered and that is what I found within a few mins of googling. I will update this answer.
– Dominique FrancisMay 22 '18 at 16:46

(Note that there was originally a typo in the first sentence of the question, where the asker had said "anime" when they meant "manga".)

The Gintama manga has indeed been ongoing for about 15 years (as of 2018) since it first started publishing in Shounen Jump on December 8, 2003.

The Gintama MyAnimeList page does show that it only aired for 4 years, from April 4, 2006 to March 25, 2010. However, more Gintama episodes aired afterwards. The anime's animation studio has put the anime on hiatus several times over the years to give the manga time to get ahead. Whenever the anime resumes, it gets catalogued as a new series on MAL. (Look in the Sequel links under the Related Anime section.) Relevant excerpt from the r/Gintama FAQ:

Why are there so many series (and why do they take up most of the top 10 in MyAnimeList)?

The reason why there are so many series is because the Sunrise Studio decided to take breaks with the anime. The breaks last from a few months to a few years. They did this to allow the manga to catch up so they didn’t have to make a lot of filler or ruin the pacing. This is why Gintama is split up on MyAnimeList. Each series has its own separate name, but it is all connected. Think of it like the difference between Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden. Except without time-skip.

Though it should be noted that the first arc to air after the first anime hiatus was the Timeskip Arc...

You can see from the Wikipedia list of Gintama episodes that after each hiatus, the series was given a slightly different title to distinguish the new episodes from previous productions.

To clarify: The anime episodes are adapted from the manga chapters. The manga is the source material. That said, your question about which manga chapters the first anime series is based off of is a bit complicated to answer, because the anime doesn't adapt the manga chapters in the exact same order, so there is a lot of jumping around. However, chapters and episodes more or less move in the same direction in the long run, so to get a good rough idea of the chapter range, you can look at the latest chapter adapted by the latest episode.

As Gorp pointed out, Yorozuya Soul does have a nice mapping from episodes to chapters, although it's very out of date. (Note that in Gintama, chapters are referred to as "Lessons".) You can see from the Yorozuya Soul table that the latest manga chapter adapted by the first anime series (i.e. first 201 episodes) is chapter 292 (from volume 34).

Incidentally, Gintama volume 33, which contains chapters 283-291, was published on April 2, 2010. (See the volume list.) Compare this to when episode 201 first aired, which was on March 25, 2010. So at this point, the anime had more or less caught up to the manga. So you can see why the studio would have wanted to take a hiatus at this point.

Some helpful resources with episode-chapter mappings:

Episode pages on the Gintama wikia (for example, episode 3) generally indicate the corresponding chapter or chapters in the infobox.